


Eyes up, Guardian

by JamesJohnEye



Category: Destiny (Video Games), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-02-14 10:10:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13005504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesJohnEye/pseuds/JamesJohnEye
Summary: Paul wakes up to a world changed. Together with his Ghost, he starts on a journey which will lead him through the darkness, to the Light.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: jamesjohneye


	2. Risen

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Paul is twenty-six years old when he is resurrected.

He doesn’t know that his name is Paul.

He doesn’t know that he’s twenty-six, or that he’s been dead for a long time.

All he knows is that he is lying in a field, in the shade of some trees. A light breeze brushes over his outstretched hand, runs over his bare arms and kisses the side of his neck, causing his hair to brush over his cheek. Fingers twitch. Nails dig into the soft earth before he slowly raises himself, shaking his head to get rid of the numb feeling. Neuron’s firing, blood pumping through his veins again.

He kneels in the tall grass, tilts his head up to look at a mostly-blue sky. Clouds drift by. He stares at it in wonder before he lowers his gaze to the trees. There’s a forest in front of him, vividly green but dark at the same time. He can see the first couple of trees but then they just blur together, creating a dark abys that frightens him.

With baited breath, he gets up. He feels weak, stumbles like a toddler taking their first steps, but then stands tall.

There’s a strange ringing in his ears. It almost seems like a memory, but that can’t be right. He only just woke up. He knows nothing except for a blue sky, clouds and now the trees. And yet there’s a voice inside his head.

Someone had called out to him. A warmth had washed over him before he’d heard the words. Or maybe that had happened after, or at the same time.

He presses a hand to his temple as if it might help relieve the throbbing sensation he feels there.

It doesn’t hurt, exactly. In fact, it almost feels familiar.

And those words…

 _Eyes up, Guardian_.

He looks up. Endless blue.

He has no idea that it’s the exact same shade of his own eyes.

With a sigh, he lowers his hand and looks around. The forest on one side, a field stretched out on the other. Out in the distance, he can see strange buildings. Taller than him but not by much. Flashes of white and stains of rust, the colors of decay and remains. Scorch marks, the shimmering of broken glass, shards in the windowsills and ragged curtains blowing in the wind.

A city, he thinks for a moment, but that doesn’t seem right. He knows all the words but can’t remember most of their meanings. A town, perhaps. Something smaller than that, even.

It looks daunting. He turns back to the forest and starts walking. The ground is uneven under his boots but he gets used to it quickly. He’s not sure why he heads into the woods, why his fingers brush over the bark of the first tree or why he suddenly smiles. Something pulls him closer, into the darkness of the forest.

Except it’s not really dark when he passes the first couple of trees. Maybe it’s his vision that adjusts, or maybe the sunlight always finds its way, somehow. He walks until he spots it.

Lying on the forest floor, almost hidden by dead leaves. If it hadn’t been for the slow blinking light, he would have missed it.

It’s a machine. Made of some sort of metal, steel, badly scratched and marked with burns. Four points and an eye in the middle, big enough that he has to cradle it with both hands like he’s holding something precious. For a second he thinks that it feels warm, but metal always reflects the sun and bears its traces.

He looks at it. Holds it close to his chest.

The light fades. The blinking stops.

‘No,’ he whispers even though he doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly afraid. His fingers tighten on the machine, his hands bring it closer to his face until he rests his forehead against one of the points. ‘No, please,’ he begs. ‘ _You found me_. You _just_ found me.’

The warmth is still there, beneath his fingertips. A soft whirring noise, a bleep and then silence again.

‘That’s it,’ Paul says. ‘Come back to me.’

The noise grows louder.

Lips almost touching the metal, he whispers; ‘I’m _alive_.’

The light pops back on. The machine jerks out of his hands, hovers in front of him, suspended in the air. The light is bright blue. It reminds him of a single eye that is now trained on him, unblinking. ‘You are!’ the voice comes, seemingly out of nowhere. ‘It worked; you’re alive! You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you. I’m a ghost. Actually, now I’m _your_ ghost.’

The words don’t make any sense to him, except for the part where the machine had confirmed that he is, in fact, alive. Paul looks at his own hands, flexes his fingers, balls them into fists before releasing the tension again.

‘I have to get you to the city.’

Paul lets his hands drop to his sides again. He looks at the boots he’s wearing, black leather that reaches up to his calves. The pants he’s wearing are tight and they have armor plates over his knees. A set of two belts on his waist. One has an empty gun holster. The other holds two wicked-looking knives. He pulls one out, balances it on the palm of his hand before gripping it tightly and making a quick slashing movement in the air.

The Ghost flies back quickly, out of range. ‘Whoa! Easy.’

Warmth spreads from the palm of his hand to the rest of his body. Paul smiles at the knife, so glad to have it back where it belongs after all these years, decades even. He doesn’t remember it, not the steel and not the grip, but his body knows that it’s a part of him.

‘There are a lot of things you won’t understand,’ his Ghost tells him. ‘I’ll try to explain what I can, but we have to get to safety first.’

‘We’re alone,’ Paul says as he looks around the forest.

The Ghost inches closer again. The points on the machine seem to help him navigate, but now they contract in a movement that reminds Paul of fear. The voice is softer as the light moves around, seemingly looking around, too. ‘We’re outside of the wall. We’re never alone in the Wild. This is Fallen territory.’

The hand with his blade itches.

‘We won’t survive long out in the open like this. I saw a town earlier. I flew over it, looking for you. Let’s go there. Fallen thrive in the dark but we won’t. We need to get to that town before nightfall.’

‘What are you?’ Paul asks even though he’s already turning on his feet and heading back to the tree line.

‘Your Ghost,’ the machine supplies, unhelpfully. ‘I was born the moment the Traveler died, as everything collapsed around us. I-‘

‘The Traveler?’

His Ghost hesitates for a moment. ‘I don’t know much about the Traveler,’ it admits. ‘It’s best to get you to the Speaker. He will tell you about it.’

Paul shakes his head. ‘Tell me what you know.’

‘Well… they called it the Traveler, and its arrival changed humanity forever. Great cities were built on Mars and Venus. Mercury became a garden world. Human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles. They stared out at the galaxy and knew that it was their destiny to walk in the light of other stars.’

He stops at the tree line for a moment. The sky is slowly growing darker. ‘What happened?’

The Ghost looks down. It sighs, even. ‘Humanity was living on borrowed time. It ran out. Before the Traveler came, a great plaque spread across earth. Nobody knew what caused it. It turned human against human and left almost nothing behind. The arrival of the Traveler saved the last humans, allowed them to rebuild their bases and then conquer the stars. But the Traveler had its own enemy. A darkness which had hunted it for eons across the black gulfs of space. Centuries after the Golden Age began, that Darkness found its prey again. It was the end of everything.’

Paul looks at the little machine that is hovering next to him. Small enough that it could rest on his shoulder and almost human in its movements. The little points surrounding the eye are drooping down at the moment, like it’s sad. It makes Paul want to reach out and gently caress it, like a parent brushing away a child’s tears.

‘Not the end,’ he says to lift its spirits. ‘You said you were born during the collapse.’

‘Yes.’ The Ghost perks up. ’Before that day, there had never been a Ghost. There had never been a Guardian! I may not know much about the Traveler, but I know it made me to bring you back. And I spent a really, really long time searching for you. The Cosmodrome?’ it asks as it looks around. ‘ _Not_ the first place I looked.’

Paul smiles and walks across the field towards the town. One of his hands comes to rest upon his knife automatically.

‘As I saw other Ghosts find their Guardian, and the centuries went by, I wondered if I’d ever find you,’ Ghost says softly as he hovers right next to the man’s shoulder. ‘And then… I did.’

There’s a trace of amazement in its voice. Bewilderment, too, that strange mixture of hope and fear of the unknown. The blue eye-piece bright in what looks like unmasked happiness and glee.

Paul smiles. This time he does reach out, fingertips trailing over the metal spike. The edge is dull and the rest of it smooth. Still warm to his touch. He doubts that will ever fade. ‘You did,’ he agrees. ‘Thank you.’

Ghost nudges his hand lightly. It looks down for a second, embarrassed. ‘Let’s get moving.’

The tall grass brushes past Paul’s calves as he moves through the field. The sun is sinking slowly, fading behind the horizon. It will take another couple of hours before it’s completely dark, Paul supposes. With a soft grunt, he hops over a low fence, boots hitting a gravel road.

He looks to the right. There’s a modest house standing on a slightly raised ridge. It overlooks the other houses on his left. Smaller, more cabins and trailers than anything else. The house will give them the advantage of higher ground, he notes, even though he’s not sure why. His instincts tell him all kinds of things he hasn’t yet found a use for.

The fact that the house is higher and has a clear view of the sky; that’s important to him somehow. Or the fact that the scattered trailers will give him plenty of places to hide, using it as a giant maze which he could even navigate easily by climbing on top of the structures. He could make most of those jumps, he thinks as he looks to the left.

‘Fine,’ Ghost sighs. ‘We can check it out. But _quickly_. And _quietly_.’

‘Tell me more about the Traveler.’

Ghost gives him a long-suffering look. ‘That’s the opposite of doing something quietly. Wait.’ It disappears suddenly. Paul looks around frantically until a voice echoes inside of his head. ‘Don’t worry,’ Ghost tells him. ‘I’m still with you.’

The connection feels stronger now. The warmth he’d felt coming from the machine is now inside of his own chest. He raises his hand, fingertips trailing over his left breast until he lets it fall again.

‘Well?’ Ghost asks. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘The Traveler. What is it?’

‘That depends on who you ask. The people in the City call it a God. They pray to it hoping that it can hold on for the rest of their lives, and their children’s lives. The City is the last safe place, and it’s constantly under siege. They fear the traveler will not be able to hold the darkness off for much longer.’

‘You said it had died.’

There’s a warmth in his chest. ‘You’re paying attention,’ Ghost says, and it sounds oddly proud. ‘It did. In its dying breath, the Traveler created the Ghosts, to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon. Guardians. They protect humanity now the Traveler is no longer able to.

‘It’s dormant now. The human race built its last free city under it, hoping that it will one day cast its protection over your species again. And bring about a new Golden Age.’

Paul frowns. ‘But it’s _dead_.’

‘So were you.’

A shiver runs up his spine. He shakes the feeling off by heading down the gravel road towards one of the low buildings. Most of the glass in the windows has broken. A door is hanging off of its hinges. There are scorch marks on the walls. He reaches out and touches it. Soot coats his fingertips. He looks at it, rubs his thumb over the pads of his finger, and feels sick.

‘We should leave,’ Ghost says softly. ‘Head back to the high ground. This was a bad idea. You should rest.’

Paul takes a slow step back, away from the building. ‘What happened here?’

‘There was a battle. Centuries ago. It doesn’t matter now.’

‘Did I die here?’

‘Yes. Out in the field, remember?’

Paul turns. It’s a straight shot from here to the woods. ‘Did I run?’ he asks.

‘If you were clever,’ Ghost answers. ‘And you are.’

‘I still died.’

‘Yes.’ There’s a beat of silence. ‘But you’re alive now,’ Ghost adds hastily. ‘I found you.’

A coldness sweeps over Paul as he thinks. He can feel the air brushing over his cheeks, over his hands and arms. The sunlight is fading. Long shadows start to drown the world around him. He starts to walk towards the higher ground now, one hand on his knives.

‘Why are you sad?’ Ghost asks quietly.

Paul puts his free hand over his heart, trying to feel the warmth of his companion. ‘Nobody buried me. Did no-one care?’ he asks. ‘Or was there no one left to do it?’

 

 

The house on the hill is in better shape. The front door is even locked, but the metal has rusted and it breaks open after one hard kick. The sound is deafening in the quietness of a forsaken world. He leaves footprints in the dust as he walks through a living room, a kitchen, a hallway. The steps creak when he heads upstairs.

All of the pictures on the walls have faded. Appliances are just rusty stains between rotting furniture. Cabinets have collapsed into piles, the ceiling has caved in one part of the house, but the master bedroom is mostly intact.

He gingerly sits down on the bed.

Ghost materializes next to him. ‘This is a good place,’ it comments. ‘I don’t see any Fallen activity on my radars. We should be okay for the rest of the night.’

‘Good,’ Paul sighs because he feels tired, even though he’s just woken up. ‘Tell me about the Fallen. Tell me – none of it makes sense.’

‘It’s a lot to tell you at once,’ Ghost says. ‘Everything will become clearer in time. Just rest now, Guardian.’

Instead of lying down on the bed, he gets up again and moves to the bathroom. There’s a cabinet above the sink, hanging askew. It has mirrors on the doors. Cracked and dirty, but he can still see his own face for the first time.

He has eyes that seem to change color. Blue when he tilts his head to the right, green when the light catches them. Faint stubbles on his hallowed cheeks, and long brown hair that almost reaches his shoulders. He’s pale. There are dark bags under his eyes.

When his gaze travels down, he sees that he’s wearing a vest that has armor plates on it. Shaking hands come up so he can feel the bullet holes. Six of them, spread out over his chest and belly. For a horrible second, he wonders whether the stains surrounding it is his own dried blood.

This is how he’d died.

With a gasp, he yanks the zipper down so he can shrug out of the garment. His movements are too wild in the small space however, and his hand smashes into the mirror as he throws the vest away from him.

The mirror breaks. Glass cuts his skin.

Blood spills from the wound, coating his fingers before dripping into the sink and onto the floor. He hisses in pain, clutches one hand with the other before looking around for something to stop the bleeding.

‘Hold still,’ Ghost says.

Paul watches breathlessly how the machine scans his hand. The wound disappears. The pain lingers in the freshly mended skin for a couple of seconds more, like a memory. But then that also fades. ‘You can heal me.’

‘Of course,’ Ghost answers. ‘And resurrect you, but try not to die too often. It’ll still hurt, even if it’s just for a second. I don’t want you to feel that.’

‘Thank you,’ Paul reaches out and takes the Ghost in his hands. He doesn’t mean just for the mended wound. The smaller points at the back of the small machine whirl playfully. ‘So what are you? AI?’

‘I’m sentient!’ Ghost almost sounds offended but the tone softens immediately. ‘I’m… I’m just a Ghost. _Your_ Ghost. And you’re my Guardian. There are not many of us left now. Our numbers used to be much larger.’

‘Why me?’

‘Only the Traveler knows,’ Ghost tells him. ‘From the moment I was born, I knew I had to find you.’

‘What’s my name?’

The smaller points whirl again, slower this time, like the machine is pondering the question. ‘Your old name?’

‘Just my name.’

‘Paul Rovia,’ Ghost says. ‘Guardian. Hunter.’ It floats out of Paul’s grasp and looks down at the blades on his belt. The eyepiece finds his gaze, shining bright. ‘You’re a Bladedancer.’

Paul presses his healed hand over one eye and leans onto the sink with his left. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘You should _rest_.’

Instead of answering, he stumbles out of the bathroom and back into the master bedroom. At the end of the bed, he stops and looks down at his chest. He’s not sure what he expected to see. Six bullet holes, maybe. Jagged, puckering scars, a constant reminder of another life he can’t remember now. But there’s nothing. Fingertips run over smooth skin, pale but unmarked. A dusting of hair, ribs visible, a bellybutton as the start of darker hairs leading down. Sharp hipbones.

He’s too thin. His chest narrow, hips slim, skin almost translucent.

‘You’re not build for strength,’ his Ghost tells him. ‘You’re build for speed. Agility. Like I said; you’re a Hunter. And a Bladedancer, too. There’s something to be said for the blade. A knife won’t jam. A knife won’t run dry. A knife is very, very quiet. We leave the noise and fire to others. There’s work to be done, out there in the dark – monsters that deserve death, delivered quickly, silently, and without mercy.’

Paul shivers. ‘That doesn’t sound like me.’

Ghost looks at him. ‘Do you even know who you are?’

Paul lets himself fall onto the bed, exhausted. Dust billows up around him, fogging up the air, settling around him. The sheets smell of death and decay, but he doesn’t mind. His eyes fall closed on their own accord. He can’t keep them open any longer. ‘I’m more than my blade,’ he murmurs. ‘More than _that_.’

Ghost settles down on the bed next to him.

Blindly, Paul reaches out and drags it closer to his chest. One arm curled around it protectively. He sleeps.

 

 

He dreams.

He’s standing in the living room of the house he fell asleep in. The glass of the windows isn’t broken. The ceiling hasn’t caved in yet. The smell of rot and decay doesn’t yet cling to every surface. Instead, the sun is streaming in through a gap between the curtains and a television is on.

Breaking news. A mysterious object has appeared in the sky above Mars. World leaders give statements about remaining calm but vigilant, scientists swarm back to their stations and centers to adjust telescopes and contact the International Space Station to get more information.

Paul watches and stays rooted on the spot as the sun goes down and up again, a day passing without news but more speculations about what the object might be. Another day passes while he watches how humanity slowly accepts that what they hoped and feared turned out to be true; they are not alone in the universe.

Time passes and he watches. Other news flashes by, unimportant, the tapes as well as the days fast forwarded before his very eyes. It slows down fourteen months later, when the first manned mission to Mars starts.

An astronaut from America. A tychonaut from china. A cosmonaut from Russia.

United under a single banner of humanity, they are the response from Earth. The mission will go into history as Aries One. They are tasked with finding an answer to the burning questions; what is the object? What had happened? Why is it there?

Mars is a planet with little to no atmosphere, which is why the scientists on Earth asked for confirmation on three different occasions when the astronauts told them that they’d come down in a _storm_. Howling winds swept over the dry surface. During one of their expeditions they found one of their answers.

The object in the sky seemed to be terra-forming the planet.

Shaky images from one of the astronaut’s helmets shows her raising her hand in wonder, fingers outstretched, and heavy drops splashing onto her suit. They bore witness to the first rain on Mars.

And when she looked up, she saw the Traveler. A giant white sphere suspended above the red planet.

It was the start of the Golden Age of Humanity.

Paul watches the televisions and sees the miracles. News reports of people growing older, passing the hundred easily until even those who were in their nineties were still considered to be young. The notion of countries and nationalities faded to the background, uniting the people from earth under a single banner now that there was so much more out there. Now that there were _others_. A belief took hold of every human being alive; that they were not bound for petty spats with neighbors but were instead destined to conquer the stars.

Reason. Intellectualism. Science.

The pillars of Human society.

They spread to other planets. To Venus, to Mars, to Mercury. And found ruins of older civilizations that had existed for many millennia before humanity had.

Some called the new developments miracles, but most stuck to science. Another state of matter was discovered; engrams, data freed from physical restraints. Thoughts and concepts dissolved into a single encoded ball of light. Other miracles were created, such as the Warminds. Great machines build in bunkers below the surface of planets. Artificial intelligence that could protect planets, or destroy them. Humanity’s greatest defenders.

This Golden Age even brought forth a new life-form; the Exo’s. Sentient machines created after the human form, though some claim that only the bodies are mechanical. That, somehow, humans managed to transfer their consciousness into a machine, extending their life-spans far beyond the normal three-hundred years.

Paul watches newsflashes of passed laws that make these Exo’s valid members of society. A lone scientist protest, claiming the Exo’s have a violent nature and one of the machines agrees with a small shrug. They might have been designed for a long-forgotten war but that is in the past. Now they only dream of cold stone crypts where they fight thousands of others just like them.

Milestone after milestone and victory after victory; the humanity’s greatness echoed through the entire universe. Colonizing planets, traveling far and wide to claim and keep and use.

It did not last.

The television flickers and then dies. Paul looks around the room and sees how the wood starts to rot. The curtains decay into dust. Glass shatters as the night sets in. He waits for a second, so used to the passing of time now, but the sun doesn’t rise again.

He walks towards the window and watches how the whole world is plunged into darkness. Somewhere on the breeze he can hear the reports of the Warminds. Panicked voices calling in attacks that could destroy entire planets, whole planets going silent with the last transmissions being only terrified screaming.

He listens to how the Golden Age of Humanity ends. Something had come from across the galaxy. The Darkness.

Colony ships were loaded with refugees who tried to flee from the onslaught. Millions of people suspended in their stasis-pods aboard the ships. All of them died that day as a terrible force swept through the solar systems, destroying everything in its path.

From the window, Paul watches how a young man runs from his base. Boots land in the hot sands of Mars. He stumbles, clutching his shoulder as blood seeps through his shirt. After just a couple of steps, he falls to his knees and looks up at the sky.

Eyes widen in panic.

Paul’s own breathing stocks.

They watch how the Traveler leaves their system.

It left them to their doom.

 

 

With a gasp, Paul wakes up.

Ghost is still lying beside him on the bed. Half-covered by the Guardian’s hand, the blue light of its eye dulled with sadness and pain.

Paul waits until he’s calmer. He strokes the metal machine to soothe it. ‘Did that happen?’ he asks eventually.

‘Yes. Sometimes it’s easier to show you,’ Ghost says as it looks away. ‘It’s a terrible story to tell.’

‘Can you show me the rest?’

‘Nobody knows for certain what happened. We only have Cayde-6’s records.’ The points around his Ghost contract, making him even smaller. He tries to hide under Paul’s hand. ‘He lies, sometimes. Or he just doesn’t remember it all. We were not yet born. He didn’t have a Ghost yet. He wasn’t even a Guardian at the time.’

‘I don’t know who that is,’ Paul says.

‘You will meet him once we get to the City. As for the history? Those dark days are all but forgotten. Some say our last Warmind turned on the Traveler to try and keep it from leaving. Others say that it took pity on the human race and changed its mind. There are even those who claim that the Traveler wasn’t fleeing, but merely finding a better spot to fight the Darkness from. It decided on Earth. Above your home planet, the Traveler fought the Darkness.’ The Ghost perks up. ‘And _won_.’

Paul smiles at the machine and strokes it.

‘It was broken. Heavily damaged. Crippled. It was dying. But in its final breath, it created the Ghosts. That was the day I was born. And that is how long I’ve been looking for you. So much more has happened. This is just the start.’

The hunter sits up. His boots land on the floorboards. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We need to get you to the City and the Tower. The other Guardians need your help.’

‘With what?’

Ghost seems to frown. ‘With fighting the Darkness.’

‘Right.’ He takes one of his blades out and studies it. A warmth spreads through his fingers.

‘We need to find you some gear first. And a ship, preferably. We’re lucky you’re on Earth, but it’s a long way to the City.’ Ghost flies to the doorway. It looks back to its Guardian still sitting on the bed, looking at his beloved knives. The narrow shoulders slumped, ribs visible, cheeks hallow and long hair framing his face. It floats back hesitantly, stopping in front of him. ‘Eyes up, Guardian.’

The man looks up.

The blue light dims into something softer. ‘Let’s go, Paul.’

 

 


	3. The Cosmodrome

 

* * *

 

 

The wind howls as he goes through the closets in the house. Most of the clothes have disintegrated into a mess of dust and fungus, and none of the boots fit better than his own. In the end, he puts his own shirt back on and tries not to notice the bloodstains and bullet holes. He’s fastening the buttons as he steps out onto the porch. Below him, the trailers await.

He doesn’t want to go down there. The memory of his former life has been lost and he doesn’t want to find pieces of it in bloody puddles and scorch marks. A strange sort of detachment settles into his chest. There’s no reason to find out whether that used to be his home, or any of the bones used to belong to his friends or even family. None of that matters now. He is all that is left.

It helps that his ghost seems to be on edge here. It wants to move on as quickly as possible.

‘I need to find you a weapon before the Fallen find us.’ Ghost hovers beside him and projects a globe in front of them, almost as small as the machine itself and made out of blue light. Earth, Paul realizes, the knowledge resurfacing easily. Ghost zooms in on their location.

‘We’re in Old Russia?’ Paul asks with a frown.

‘Very good,’ Ghost praises. ‘Near the Cosmodrome in fact.’

The name sounds familiar. Vague memories make him feel a little nauseous. He looks at the fields he died in and remembers how the tall grass used to brush over the palms of his hands as he walked through it. How calming it had been to hear the wind rushing through leaves after the clanking of metal all day long.

‘You said we needed a ship,’ Paul says. ‘What better place to find one than a shipyard?’

‘But a shipyard in Fallen territory? _Not_ the best idea.’

‘Do we have another idea?’

‘Well, no,’ Ghost allows as the maps zooms out again and he starts scanning the continent. ‘But there has to be another option. Maybe I could send out a distress call, or another guardian –‘

‘We need a ship and we need to find me a gun,’ Paul reasons. ‘That used to be one of our bases, right? Chances are we can find both inside the Cosmodrome, so let’s go. We’ll be quiet,’ the man says with a small smile when his Ghost looks at him with a troubled expression. ‘That’s what you said; we leave the noise and fire to others. A knife is very quiet.’

‘Fallen raising the alarm won’t be,’ Ghost grumbles but the map disappears. ‘The first sign of trouble, and we’re getting out of there.’

The guardian pats his ghost in the passing. ‘Of course.’

The world feels colder today. There are gray clouds swirling above the forest and fields, stretching as far as Paul can see. It feels like it will rain soon. That might be a good thing because dust billows around his boots as he jumps off the porch of the house and follows his Ghost. The machine zooms ahead of him, leading the way. Sometimes it sways a little to the left or right, it scans plants and fading footprints but doesn’t comment on any.

They follow the slope of the hill upwards. The wind plays with his long hair. He wonders whether that used to bother him. It doesn’t now, even though he needs to tuck it behind his ear but maybe he used to be a completely different person. The boots he’s wearing fit perfectly but still feel wrong. The noses are reinforced with steel. They’re too heavy on his feet. When he jumps forward to vault a wooden fence, he feels too slow, like his feet get held back too much.

‘The person I was before,’ Paul says, ‘he wasn’t a guardian, right?’

Ghost comes back to him quickly, hovering next to his shoulder but flying backwards so the eyepiece can train on him. ‘No. You weren’t a guardian before. There hadn’t been a single person born in the Light during your time. That came after.’

‘How long after?’

‘During the Collapse,’ Ghost says. ‘The last age of humanity, when the Traveler died.’ The spikes whirl when Paul glances it him. ‘That was centuries ago, Guardian. I’ve showed you the time-span, remember? In your dream.’

‘I’ve been dead for _centuries_?’

‘Yes.’

Paul reaches the top of the hill. The field slopes downwards from there and is stopped by a large road. It’s filled with the carcasses of vehicles. Busses, vans, cars and trucks, bumper to bumper for miles. All of the tires have rotted away. The metal has turned red and brown and black, the only different colors are from nature that has slowly started to reclaim the traffic jam. Like a wound scarring over, vines and flowers pop up between the rust. There’s grass growing in the cracks of the concrete.

Glass crunches beneath his boots as he jumps over the guardrail and onto the road. The sound is unusually loud in this quiet world. He walks past the vehicles. Some doors are open, heaps of rotting clothes in the backseats makes him think that people had packed their belongings and were heading some place else.

He stops next to one car. On the seat and floor are human bones. A skull, a spine, ribs easily recognizable.

 _Centuries_ , he thinks vaguely. There’s no fear coursing through his veins at the sight of the human remains, just a faint sense of wariness. He wonders how many people died in this traffic jam. There are so many cars.

‘Where were they going?’

Ghost appears beside him. It looks at the remains and then the far distance. ‘Same place as we are. The Cosmodrome has always been a military base, even before it was a shipyard.’

‘What were they running from?’

‘The Darkness. They thought it was a disease. A plaque. So many people died,’ Ghost says softly as he looks at the cars around them. ‘There was no cure, nobody even knew how it started. Some ghosts have found lost transmissions scattered on earth, researchers taping their last findings before they ran out of fuel. Everything went up in flames. Everything they’d found out, and everything they were.’

Paul nods. He walks on. There’s a car crash ahead. Several rusted out vehicles piled on top of each other. One of them had clearly burned out, the metal warped by long-gone fire. It’s easy enough to jump onto the hood of one of the cars. It creaks but holds his weight. He steps onto the roof and then jumps to another, going higher until he balances on the top one.

The wind plays with his hair and clothing. It bites into his bared skin, cold and unforgiving. He looks at the horizon. Out of the curtain of clouds, a wall has appeared. More than five stories high and made out of rusted metal. Some of the panels have fallen down, exposing the inner workings of the building. Collapsed corridors and dangerous-looking staircases.

It has long-since been abandoned.

Suddenly, the quiet is broken by a piercing scream.

‘Guardian!’ Ghost blinks into existence next to him, looking around frantically. ‘Fallen!’

‘I heard it,’ Paul mutters as he looks around too, even though he’s not sure what he’s searching for. His heart rate spikes. The hairs on his arms rise as he takes hold of one knife, slowly drawing it out of the sheath.

The scream hadn’t sounded human. Just a guttural sound, stretched out and echoing over the fields, bouncing between the metal and trees. Paul can’t be sure where it had come from.

‘We need to move, fast!’

Paul nods and jumps off the cars, landing on the concrete with a soft thud. He heads towards the wall.

‘First sign of trouble and we were getting out of here, remember?’ Ghost says, zooming after him and sounding a little upset. ‘We need to _go_.’

‘We need a ship.’

‘We’re not even sure there is one in there! It’s a shipyard, but it’s been abandoned for centuries! Maybe the Fallen picked it clean or-‘

‘Maybe,’ Paul nods. He vaults a car blocking his way. ‘Let’s go find out.’

Ghost mutters something under its breath.

The Guardian lifts an eyebrow at it, smirking a little. ‘What did you say?’

‘ _Hunters_.’ Ghost grumbles. ‘Quick with a blade, quick to the grave.’

Paul looks down at his knife. He lets it twirl on the palm of his hand before gripping it tightly again. ‘Good thing you’ve made me immortal then.’

‘ _Immortal_? No, no,’ his ghost says, sounding bewildered and a little scared. It looks over his shoulder. The blue eye-piece widens. ‘We can still die, Guardian. Permanently. So start running. Run. Paul, _run!’_

 

 

The wall is even bigger up-close, of course. Looming over the land, drowning the fields surrounding it in darkness. A shiver runs up Paul’s spine as he ducks into the shade, slipping down a hill and vaulting over cars, following his ghost as it finds a path that leads towards the big structure.

Behind them, the screams start to grow louder. Even in the faint echoing, Paul can here that they’re words. Nothing he recognizes of course, but words nonetheless. When he glances over his shoulder, he can see vague silhouettes jumping on the top of some cars in the distance. At least four of them.

‘This way!’ Ghost flies ahead of him, up a small ramp that leads to blown-out doors and into the wall itself. They turn left and Paul runs up a set of creaking stairs, panting slightly as he runs onto a landing.

He’s surprised that the emergency lighting seems to be on, but even more surprised that this hallway looks familiar. Even without his ghost, he would know the way. The red glow makes the corridor seem smaller and haunted, with shadows moving across the metal walls. Strange noises  causes his breath to catch in his throat. The sound of something scurrying along steel pipes.

‘Quiet. They’re right above us,’ Ghost whispers.

There’s a panel missing on the wall across from them. In a flash, he sees a creature climbing up the pipes, fleeing from the red emergency lights. His heart rate jumps but he forces himself forward, running along and up another set of stairs.

‘Hang tight. We need more light,’ Ghost says as it looks around the next room. Its blue eye-piece serves as a source of light already, shining bright in the darkness. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ It follows pipelines on the ceiling, floating higher and higher until it’s just a little blob of light in the distance.

Paul watches in the darkness. It feels strange to have his ghost wander so far from him. He doesn’t like it.

‘Another one of these hardened military systems… and a few centuries of entropy working against me,’ Ghost says just before the lights flicker on.

 _Fallen_.

Dozens of them.

What sounds like outraged screams ring out as they scatter, trying to get away from the light. It seemed to shock them more than actually harm them because they recover soon. One of them rises on a bridge across the room. It points at the ghost and screams.

They’re spider-like creatures, walking on two legs but with four arms, two holding on to strange guns while others wield long knives. Armor plates cover their tights and chests, torn red cloaks hang from their shoulders.

There are others, too. Drone-like objects, sentient like Ghost but with glowing red eye-pieces and a red casing.

 They hone in on him in seconds.

Ghost comes flying back and Paul doesn’t need the slightly panicked command to start running. The light has revealed another corridor to their right. He dives under a gate, gets back to his feet and propels himself down a hallway. There’s no going back now.

‘Trip mines!’

Red beams of light cut through the corridor, but they’re easy enough to evade. Paul ducks beneath them and jumps over the last set, his heavy boots thudding onto the metal floors.

‘To the right!’ Ghost orders but Paul turns left instead.

There a winding staircase around the corner, going up, up, up. Paul presses himself against the wall and grabs Ghost, holding the machine to his chest to obscure the bright eyepiece. It quivers in his grasps but stays silent.

Three hostile drones fly past. They turn right and disappear.

‘That was _lucky_ ,’ Ghost scoffs. ‘You got _lucky_!’

‘Only a little bit,’ Paul grins at it before quietly walking up the staircase.

‘This is a dead-end,’ Ghost warns him. ‘I have the schematics of this place, there’s no way out of that office. And if you think about jumping, I’m not ressing you.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Paul says with a shake of his head. ‘I’m not jumping out of anything. Unlock the door for me?’

‘ _Excuse me_?’

‘Unlock the door for me. Come on, you just got the whole system back online,’ the hunter gestures to a lit-up key-pad next to the door. ‘Don’t tell me you can’t crack this code for me.’

Ghost seems to huff but moves forward to scan the pad. The spikes on its body twirl as he works. ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’

‘We’re a team,’ Paul says with raised eyebrows and a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, ‘ _right_?’

 Ghost huffs again but glances at him. The lights on the pad switch from red to green and the little machine zooms back to its guardian, nuzzling him. ‘Right.’

 The hunter smiles before pushing the door open. The room is more a look-out post than an actual office. The windows have been smashed out a long time ago, glass covers the floor. There are control panels everywhere, the lights blinking rapidly now that Ghost has restarted the system. From here, he can see the traffic jam outside, the rusted out cars and the woods beyond it.

Paul moves to the back where several air-tight cases are stored. They glow green in the semi-darkness. He kneels before the first. It opens as soon as he puts his hand on it, cracking open to reveal… nothing. It’s empty.

Ghost hovers nervously behind him as he moves to the next case. ‘How did you know these were here? Or how they work?’

‘I didn’t. Got lucky.’ The next crate cracks open and Paul smiles at the contents. Several grenades, which he clips to his belt, and a rifle. The weapon feels right in his hands. He gets up, checks the chamber and then switches the safety off. For just a second, he lifts it up, looking down the sight.

‘Lucky,’ Ghost scoffs again. ‘Why couldn’t I get a reliable titan? A wise warlock? Why did I get a _hunter_?’

‘You love me,’ Paul mutters as he ducks under his ghost to get back to the staircase.

‘Well, _yeah_ , but... wait for me!’

It feels strange to discover muscle memory he never knew he had. His fingers curl around the weapon with ease, swing it to his shoulder in a fluent move. He knows how it works, how to reload and switch magazines. He wonders whether his ghost has something to do with it but doesn’t take the time to ask. There are more important things to worry about right now.

His footsteps are silent as he makes his way downstairs again, following the corridor as it snakes deeper into the wall. It’s quiet now, or at least quieter than before. The screams have faded. He can’t hear the dozens of footsteps anymore.

‘We need to get to the other side of the wall,’ Ghost whispers. ‘It’s not far.’

‘They raised the alarm,’ Paul murmurs as he side-steps into another shadowy corridor, rifle raised and the hilt digging into his shoulder.

‘Yes, but this place is abandoned. It’s inside Fallen territory, yes, but this is not their base. The Fallen don’t have bases; they have their ships. Nothing else.’

Paul frowns and lowers his gun, ‘did you see those Fallen back there? That looked like an occupational force to me.’

Ghost’s optic narrows. ‘How would you know? You just woke up!’

‘Because it took _you_ centuries to find me, apparently!’ Paul jabs a finger at the machine, poking it in the eye. ‘You got a hunter and I got a slow ghost.’

‘ _Slow_?’ Ghost cries out. ‘I had to search the entire galaxy for your tiny, weak, broken body! You were bones and ash when I found you, you should-‘

‘Ssh,’ Paul whispers.

‘Oh, typical! _Typical_! I have a good point and what does the Hunter do? He _shushes_ me. Ssh yourself,’ Ghost grumbles as it turns away from him, huffing and with the points around his optic drooping down. ‘Ungrateful, stupid hunter.’

Paul slowly raises his gun again. There’s a shadow moving on the other end of the hallway. Crouched and creeping over the metal floor plates, moving like a spider. Just as fast, with little hops that don’t make any noise, small leaps that bring it closer and closer, faster and faster. One of the Fallen. Its eyes glint in the emergency lighting.

As does its knives.

Paul’s finger curls around the trigger.

The Fallen doesn’t seem to have a gun. It stares at the Guardian with small eyes, unblinking.

‘Ghost,’ Paul mutters. ‘Go away.’

‘ _Go away_?’ the tiny drone sounds outraged. ‘You’d be lost without me!’ it turns back to its guardian, floating higher so they’re on eye level. ‘I’m your Light! I’m the reason why you’re even alive, the Traveler himself send me to find you and you tell me to-‘

The Fallen leaps for them.

Paul snatches Ghost out of the air, throwing himself against the wall and groaning at the impact. He flings Ghost aside so he has his hands free again, trusting the little drone to catch itself mid-air. It does, disappearing for a second before popping up two feet from him. The eye widens.

‘ _Paul_!’

The guardian fires his gun for the first time. It bites into his shoulder, kicking back hard, but that is easily dismissed. The bullet finds its target.

The Fallen snarls as it falls onto the floor, caught mid-leap again. The knives clatter on the metal beside it and Paul darts forward to kick them away from the creature. It writhes on its back, clawing at an oozing wound on its shoulder before small eyes settle on the guardian again.

Paul stares down at it.

‘It’s called a Dreg,’ Ghost says as it floats closer. ‘A foot soldier of the Fallen.’

‘Can it understand me?’

‘No. It doesn’t speak our language.  There are some who can, higher-placed Fallen, certain Captains have a basic understanding, but not the Dreg.’

Paul nods. He tilts his head a little to the side, catching the creature’s eye. There’s dark blood pooling on the floor. The Dreg snarls at him, first curling in on itself, touching the wound gingerly before trying to reach for Paul’s foot. Nails scratch at the leather of his boot.

‘Can you heal him like you healed me?’

Ghost looks at its guardian. ‘ _Heal_ a fallen? No. I can’t even heal another guardian. Just you. And even if I could heal a Dreg, I wouldn’t. It wants you dead. End it so we can move on.’

The gun feels heavy in Paul’s hand. ‘End it? Just like that?’

‘Just like that. It wouldn’t hesitate if the roles were reversed. The rest of them won’t hesitate. This is who you are; a guardian of the last safe city of Earth, and this is your cause; to fight the darkness, wherever we may find it. I know you’ve just risen, a lot of things are still unclear to you, but this shouldn’t be: _end it_.’

Paul watches how the Dreg tries to dig its nails into his boots, scratching at the leather as if it wants to draw blood. It snarls at him, hisses and bares its teeth, writing in pain on the floor but still trying to get to him.

He lifts his gun and shoots it in the head.

The body goes still.

‘Just like that,’ Paul says softly.

Ghost zooms closer, hesitating for a moment before pressing itself against his neck and chin, nuzzling his guardian again. The metal feels warm, like it’s alive. ‘Thank you for trusting me.’

Paul raises his hand to hold the machine against him, closing his eyes for a moment. ‘Don’t lead me astray.’

‘I won’t. _Never_! I’m your Light.’

‘Well… if this is the next world….’ Paul presses a kiss to his ghost and then moves on.

 

 

He doesn’t know which is better, the fact that he has lost count of his own kills, or that he stopped caring about it. The Fallen shoot at him, swarm his position until he disappears down hallways and corridors, jumping down ladders to hide and get away in time to pop up somewhere else. Every time one of his headshots land, a wisp of white smoke dances in the air before the Fallen slump over. Other times, the body-shots drive them to the ground, leaving them dying from blood loss or at the mercy of their own kind.

All the while, his ghost guides him. Left, right, zipping under gates and opening doors that were locked earlier, and locking them with different codes when they’re through to make sure that the Fallen can’t follow them.

Together, they run until a door swings open and Paul bursts into an area with natural sunlight again. They made it through the wall.

He pauses for a moment to catch his breath. The sun is hidden behind dark clouds but he enjoys the cool breeze that rushes past his sweaty neck and fingers.

‘The Fallen have a tighter hold on this place than I thought,’ Ghost comments. ‘It must have been a while since patrols of the city came through here. We’ll need to tell Zavala about this, and the Speaker of course.’

Paul ignores the names he doesn’t know. He checks the number of bullets he has and reloads his gun. ‘Which way are we go-‘

A red flare suddenly lights up the sky.

There’s a strange noise above them, a muted boom, a rumble and then the sky seems to ripple, warp, stretch and crumble at the same time. Another blink of the eye and there’s a massive space ship flying above the Cosmodrome. Black as the night and growing bigger as it descends.

‘A Fallen ship _this_ close to the surface? Move!’

‘Move _where_?’

‘Just move!’ Ghost says as he disappears, hiding in the safety of its guardian as Paul vaults a barricade and lands on concrete with a dull thud. His heavy boots make him feel slower than he should, but he picks up speed as he crosses a courtyard. The rumble of the ship above him is deafening now. It terrifies him.

There are containers scattered around the area. Some have been thrown onto their sides, others are open, contents spilling out. Metal parts for machinery, rubber that is now crumbling, plants growing over rust stains. To his own surprise, he finds this terrain easy to maneuver. Jumping over low obstacles, using smaller ones to get onto the big containers, pulling himself up with a soft grunt before running onwards.

Agility and speed, his ghost had said. That’s what he was made for, and he can feel it in every fiber of his body. There’s something burning in his chest, hot and steady, flaring whenever his feet leave the ground for that split second, urging him on and on and on, faster, faster, _faster_.

The sound comes again but softer now, somehow. Just a crackling behind him and then outraged roars of Fallen that appear between the containers. Transmitted down to the surface from their ship.

‘I’m picking up signs of an old jumpship. Could be our ticket out of here,’ Ghost tells him, his voice echoing inside Paul’s mind. ‘Through that door.’

A hail of bullets hit the concrete near his feet as he darts towards the entrance. The door is already closing, his ghost materializing on the other side and changing the codes so the Fallen will be delayed for a couple of seconds longer because they will need to blast the door open or find another way inside.

Just as Paul drops low to glide under the door, a bullet clips his arm.

He screams. At first because he’s just shocked and surprised, feeling the sting but not the pain as adrenaline pumps through his system. He rolls to safety and gets to his feet.

‘Keep running, I’ll take care of it,’ Ghost mutters, scanning his arm briefly.

Paul looks at the wound. There’s blood oozing down his pale arm, drenching the white shirt he’d been wearing. Pain suddenly slams his system, hot and burning, causing him to gasp and reach for the wound. Blood seeps through his glove.

‘I got it, I got it,’ Ghost murmurs, ‘breathe. Breathe through it.’

He can feel the wound close beneath his fingertips. It’s a strange sensation, just as hot as the bullet biting his skin, but soothing like a warm bath after two seconds. The blood is still there but the pain is fading quickly.

‘There you go. You’re fine.’ The little machine swings around and drifts towards the center of the big room. The old jumpship Ghost had been talking about earlier is there. It had crashed into the building, destroying part of the ceiling. There’s rubble everywhere, but the ship looks to be intact. It’s suspended above the ground by thick electrical wires, a dark, looming shadow above Paul.

‘Alright, let me see if I can get us out of here,’ Ghost says before it starts scanning the ship. ‘It’s been here a while. It hasn’t made a jump in centuries. We’re lucky the Fallen haven’t completely picked it clean.’

‘Will it fly?’

‘I can make it work,’ Ghost says and it sounds like it’s smiling. ‘I might be slow, but I’m good.’

Paul smiles back. He watches how the machine disappears into the ship. The lights flicker on. The engine starts, turbines spinning louder and louder before the vehicle starts to hover above the wires. The wind plays with his hair and steals his amazed laughter.

Behind him, the door blasts open. Heat tickles the back of his neck before he turns around. Dozens of Fallen scream and charge.

‘Bringing you in!’

Paul smirks and disappears into a mist of white and blue particles.

The ship takes off, and in seconds, they have left the Cosmodrome behind.

 

 

It feels strange to walk through the ship, exploring it while Ghost flies it back to the City, which is apparently hours away from where he woke up. The ship is quite small. He walks through a narrow corridor, stooping a little to duck beneath a computer before he gets to the sleeping quarters. They’re just two bunk beds on the side. Only two beds seemed to be occupied, the blankets a mess of dust now and pillows still dented.

There’s a picture taped to the ceiling. A man with a little boy on his hip, both smiling happily at the camera.

Paul wonders whether they are still alive.

Something sticks out from under a pillow. It’s a book. He takes it and walks back to the front of the ship, falling into the co-pilot’s seat while Ghost hovers next to him. The little machine glances to the side before focusing on the scanners again.

‘What did you find?’

Paul cracks the book open and puts his feet on the console in front of him. ‘A book.’

‘I can see that,’ Ghost sighs. ‘I meant; what kind of book? Let me see it.’

‘No, I found it first,’ Paul murmurs. It surprises him a little that the ghost leaves him alone. After ten minutes of tentative silence between them, the guardian is first to break. He reaches out and strokes one of the spikes on the machine. ‘It’s called the Holy Bible.’

Ghost glances down. ‘Lore and legend. That’s old, from before the Traveler.’

‘Yeah,’ Paul marks the page and looks up. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Are _you_?’

He thinks about the creature he killed earlier. The bullet biting his own skin, the feeling of being hunted through the remains of a civilization. There’s still so much he doesn’t understand. None of it makes sense, but he trusts his ghost. He trusts the bond they seem to share, the warmth that binds them together. The Light.

‘Yes. I’m okay,’ he says as he gently hooks his hand around the machine, dragging it closer to him. Ghost bumps against the hand before zooming down, landing in the Guardian’s lap.

‘Then I am, too,’ the machine tells him. ‘The ship will get us to the city, but it will take a while. It can’t break orbit, but that’s okay. We’re on our way.’

‘We have time,’ Paul nods, fingers stroking over the metal absent-mindedly while he continuous to read. After a couple of hours, he laughs softly.

‘What?’ Ghost asks, perking up, blue eye-piece brightening.

‘You really are slow. Three days. It only took him _three days_ to rise again.’

‘Just be glad that you did. And don’t you dare compare yourself to him,’ Ghost mutters as he sulks. ‘Blasphemy.’

‘Paul _Jesus_ Rovia,’ the guardian laughs while looking out of the window and over the ocean that is whizzing by beneath them.

‘I’m not calling you that.’

‘Are.’

‘Am not.’

Paul curls his arm around the ghost, hugging him close, ‘are. Hey. Do _you_ have a name?’

‘ _Now_ he asks,’ Ghost grumbles as he buries himself deeper in the embrace. ‘But no, I don’t have another name. Some guardians give their ghosts a name, but you don’t have to.’

‘There’s no point, right? You don’t listen to me anyway.’ Paul sniggers as Ghost jerks out of his arms to glare at him, points whirling dangerously even when he reaches out for him again. ‘Come back here. The tower is still hours away, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to get some sleep then. Wake me up when we get there.’

‘Stop telling me what to do!’

 


	4. The Tower

 

* * *

 

 

‘Guardian? Eyes up, Paul. We’re approaching the Tower.’

The hunter wakes up and swings his feet off the console, sitting up to see the last free city on Earth for the first time in his life. The ship dives down to break through the clouds. Paul will later deny that he ever gasped, or that the strange sensation in the pit of his stomach was caused by the sight of the great wall and then the seemingly-endless city. Giant neighborhoods divided by wide rivers, sky-scrapers reaching up to try and touch the globe that is watching over the city.

The Traveler.

A giant white sphere, drowning half of the city below it in shadows. Lights are one there, millions of them, flashing past and melting together in a golden glow as their spaceship flies over it.

‘There it is,’ Ghost says as he transmits landing coordinates. ‘The home of the Guardians.’

An enormous wall shields the city. Higher than any of the skyscrapers, higher than all buildings, with a single tower to watch over it all. A needle made of silver, shining in the sunlight. There seems to be landing pads one either side of the building; spaceships fly on and off, disappearing into a burst, a small shock wave announcing that they broke orbit to get to another planet, warp drives activating and leaving Earth behind.

Ghost looks at him, the blue optic bright. ‘Welcome home, Paul.’

Paul shoots him a hesitant smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘Get ready, I’ll transmit you onto the deck.’

‘You’ll what me where?’

For a second he can’t breathe, his whole body tingles before he bursts into existence on the flight deck of the tower, stumbling a little with the sudden momentum. Ghost appears beside him. It looks up and watches how their ship lands beside them without any trouble.

Paul stares at his new surroundings. Other spaceships land and guardians materialize around him, most of them walking off as soon as their boots hit the ground, undisturbed by the transmit process. They’re probably used to it. Some linger for a couple of seconds, waiting on friends, slinging arms over shoulders and poking each other in the side before disappearing around a corner.

Most of the guardians are decked out in their full gear.

‘A titan,’ Ghost says. ‘You can tell by the armor; they’re _tanks_. The first Titans built the Wall, and gave their lives to defend it. _Strive for honor, stand for hope_.’

It’s easy to spot the Titans. They’re the bulkiest of them all, slow, too, but with a power radiating from them that makes other give them a wider berth. Some wear cloths with strange symbols around their waists, others have their weapon still in their hands. A female Titan removes her helmet to run a gloved hand through her long hair before smiling at one of her companions.

That guardian is of slighter built, wearing robes instead of heavy armor, and a glowing band around their upper arm.

‘Warlocks,’ Ghost tells Paul, following the guardian’s gaze. ‘Scholars. They’ve long studied the Traveler, mastering some of its arcane energy and devoting themselves to discovering its secrets. Some got lost; a Warlock’s mind is an arsenal of deadly secrets, balanced between godhood and madness.’

‘ _Scholars_?’

Ghost gives him a sharp look. ‘Do not underestimate them. On the battlefield, those secrets can shatter reality itself.’

‘What the hell is _this_?’ The sharp tone causes Paul to turn around. There’s a young woman standing behind him, one hand on her hip, the other holding a wrench and using it to point at the spaceship of the hunter. Her black hair frames her face, dark eyes drawn together by a dismayed frown. She’s not wearing any armor, shirt tied up to reveal her toned stomach and a dirty rag dangling from the back of her shorts. An eyebrow rises higher the longer Paul stays silent.

‘An old jumpship,’ Ghost supplies. ‘We found it in Old Russia.’

‘And what do you expect me to do with it?’ she asks, looking at the small drone. ‘The warp drive is missing. It’s useless. It’s a miracle it even made it to the Tower.’

‘We just needed a-‘

‘Rosita!’ Another Guardian appears, hopping over a railing to land beside the woman. His feet are silent when they touch the metal. Dressed in black armor and a dark cloak shielding most of his head, the first thing Paul sees are his eyes. They’re not human. They’re mechanical, like Ghost’s optic, and just as blue. An Exo, Paul realizes. A humanoid war machine. His voice is light and cheerful when he speaks again. ‘Light of my life, Light brighter than the Traveler itself, my most beloved shipwright, bathing in eternal Li-‘

‘Your Sparrow isn’t ready yet, Cayde,’ Rosita says without taking her eyes off the space ship. ‘Back of the line, I said.’

‘Back of the line?’ Cayde balks with a hand over his heart, slouching as if he’s been shot through it. ‘Rosita! Did you _see_ that last race? That little shit beat me by _two_ seconds! Two _whole_ seconds!’

‘Me upgrading your Sparrow will not upgrade your racing skills, you realize that, right?’

‘Yeah,’ the Exo plops down on a crate near the woman. ‘But a faster Sparrow will mean that I can at least _say_ that it was close. This was just pathetic.’

‘I’m glad we agree on something,’ Rosita tells him but there’s the hint of a smile around her lips and eyes. ‘We all thought you’d learned your lesson last time. That was an embarrassment as well. Two out of two.’ She spins the wrench in her hand, ‘you’re going down.’

‘It’s the best of five,’ Cayde mutters. ‘And he cheated. He had the faster Sparrow this time!’

‘Because he won it from you after that first race.’

‘Shut up.’

Rosita laughs and shakes her head. ‘I told you not to bet against Grimes. He’s good. What’s not good is this.’ She gestures to the old jumpship. ‘Your hunter dumped a junkyard on my doormat and expects me to make it fly.’

‘My hunter?’ Cayde looks up at Paul. He waves his hands, ‘no- no – no. _You’re_ a _Hunter_?’ He sounds horrified. ‘Where’s your hand cannon? Where’s your sniper rifle? _What_ are you _wearing_?’ the voice sounds panicked now and the blue optics widen as he steps forward, gesturing to Paul’s clothes. ‘ _Where’s your cloak_?’

Ghost sighs. ‘He has just risen, Cayde. We’re not yet battle ready.’

Cayde gives him a once over and winces, ‘don’t let anyone see you. And don’t tell anyone that you’re a Hunter, please. I’ve got a reputation to uphold here.’

Paul folds his arms in front of his chest. He raises an eyebrow. ‘For being an asshole?’

Ghost makes a panicked sound.

Rosita’s eyebrows shoot up.

‘ _Exactly_!’ Cayde laughs, jabbing Paul in the chest. ‘Okay, fine. You’re _definitely_ one of mine.’ He seems to smirk. ‘Get dressed before you see the Speaker. You look like a pleb.’ He walks away from them. His cloak swings in time with his footsteps. On the back, in smokey gray against black, is the ace of spades.

Something tells Paul that it’s no coincidence that the Exo bears the mark of the one playing card that represents death.

‘Who is he?’ Paul asks as his gaze trails over the Guardian’s form.

‘Cayde-6,’ his ghost tells him. ‘He’s the Hunter’s Vanguard. Every class has their own; they’re elite Guardians. When a terrible threat rises, Guardians look to the Vanguard, the closest thing we have to a command structure. Elite veterans who coordinate the reports of roaming Hunters, the analyses of cloistered Warlocks and the instincts of grizzled Titans into a single plan of action. They’re supposed to take new Guardians under their wings,’ Ghost says and it looks from left to right like its shaking its head, ‘but don’t expect more than what you just got from him.’

‘ _Get dressed_ is all I’m getting here?

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Rosita scoffs. She throws her wrench onto a counter. ‘Hunters are all about style. And killing things. And he’s kind of right; you do look like a pleb.’ A mischievous grin lights up her face when he scowls and looks down at his ragged clothing. ‘Don’t worry, Rick will see to that. No one knows how Cayde-6 landed the job of being the Vanguard, but most assume there was a bet involved. He’s handling it a lot better now he has Rick as his second in command.’

‘Some of us _do_ know how he got it,’ Ghost says, his tone clipped and colder than Paul has ever heard. ‘And they know _why_ he has been doing it even though he’d rather be anywhere but at the Tower.’

Rosita scoffs again. ‘If he wants to get himself killed out in the wilds like all his precious little Hunters? No-one is stopping him.’

Ghost shakes its head again. ‘Cayde might not be your typical Vanguard, but he _is_ the Vanguard. There’s no Hunter like him. He’s… He’s _elite_. The City needs him.’

The woman lowers her gaze for a second. ‘You’re right, Ghost. I’m sorry.’ She glances at the Hunter. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Paul Rovia, but my ghost calls me Jesus.’

‘I do not!’

Rosita smirks. ‘I’ll take a look at your ship, but that warp drive? I don’t just have those lying around. If you want to break orbit, you will need to go find one. And I’d bet fifty Glimmer that it’s back at the Cosmodrome, too. Gear first,’ she waves her hand at his clothing, ‘but then you can go on your first fetch-mission.’

‘Thank you, Rosita,’ Ghost says and Paul nods his agreement.

The shipwright dismisses them with another wave of her hand.

‘Let’s go, Paul,’ Ghost zooms ahead of him, leading them out of the hangar and onto a main square. More Guardians walk past here. Some are sitting beneath a large tree, hiding in its shadow while talking and laughing with each other. He can see Titans and Warlocks and figures that the rest of them must be Hunters, like him. Their voices disappear in the rush of the wind.

Paul looks around. White tiles and patches of green grass, the wind causing bright red banners to flap noisily.

There seem to be little shops everywhere. There’s a sign for the postmaster and the Vanguard’s Hall, the second hangar, the gunsmith, crucible and postmaster.

‘So… Where do we find Rick?’

‘He’ll be in the Hunter’s lounge,’ Ghost says. ‘It’s over there, down the staircase.’

The Hunter follows his guide and spots more people of his own race. Light on their feet and wearing sleek armor, not nearly as heavy as the Titans but sturdy. Most of their cloaks, however, are torn and ragged, sporting symbols Paul doesn’t recognize. Guns gleam on their hips. Knives glisten when they move.

‘There he is!!’

They enter a small lounge with couches and chairs scattered around. At the very back, there’s a holographic screen and a desk. A man is lounging on top of it, lying on his back while staring at the ceiling with a bored expression. One of his legs sways to a beat in his own head. Dressed completely in black armor but with a dark green cloak. The hood has fallen down to reveal sleek, dark hair and small blue eyes.

Despite Paul’s soft footsteps, the man turns his head to him, eyes narrowing even further.

‘By the window,’ Ghost says softly.

Paul tears his gaze away from the man on the desk to spot another standing a couple of feet away. He hadn’t noticed him at first, camouflaged by his light gray gear and leaning against a gray pillar. Dark curls and bright eyes, a smile softening his sharp features as he pushes himself upright.

‘You found him,’ the man says as he looks at the sentient drone. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you, Rick,’ Ghost answers. ‘I’d like to introduce my guardian… Jesus.’

Paul smirks at him before stepping forward to shake Rick’s hand. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Jesus. Welcome to the Tower, my name is Rick Grimes.’ He gestures to the large window behind him, and waits until the newly risen Hunter steps up next to him to look at their surroundings. ‘And welcome to the last safe city on Earth – the only place the Traveler can still protect. It took centuries to build. Now, we’re counting every day it stands. The Tower is where the Guardians live. I’ll make sure you’ll get a room assigned to you. If there’s anything you need, be sure to come to me.’

‘Thank you,’ Paul says. ‘We ran into Cayde upon landing. He told me to come see you before I went to see the Speaker.’

Rick smirks. ‘He probably had something to say about your gear.’

‘Called me an embarrassment to Hunters, basically.’

‘Don’t mind Cayde,’ Rick says while the man lounging on the desk snorts. ‘He likes to rile people up, get under their skin. Your gear is just that; stuff and things. It’s your Light that counts,’ the man gives him a small smile, ‘but some armor can’t hurt. Come here, put this on first and I’ll grab the rest for you.’

He hands the man a new pair of pants and shirt. Both are gunmetal gray. As Rick walks away to get the rest of his stuff, Paul sits down on a small bench to kick his boots off. Out of the corner of his eye, he observes the man lounging on the desk.

There’s something _wrong_ with him.

Not on the outside, of course. The man is handsome even though he can’t seem to stop scowling at the ceiling. The small eyes are blue, and soften when he looks at Rick. Broad shoulders and narrow hips, long legs stretched out so that his boots hang off the edge of the desk. No, there’s something else wrong with him. Something inside him.

‘That’s Daryl,’ Rick says. He sounds amused. He looks pointedly at Paul’s hand that’s resting on the laces of his boots, too distracted to actually take them off. ‘Is there something wrong?’

Daryl tilts his head to the side and looks at Paul.

‘No,’ Paul mutters, bowing his head and removing his boots. ‘Of course not.’

‘There should be.’ Rick’s smile is kind when he kneels down in front of the young Hunter to help him put his new boots on. The movement is practiced, and Paul wonders how many times he’s dressed a newly risen guardian over the past decades. ‘It’s his Light that makes you wary of him. It feels like something is… _off_ , about him, right? It’s okay. You need to learn to trust that feeling.’

Daryl snorts and folds his arms behind his head. He looks back up at the ceiling.

‘He’s a Nightstalker,’ Rick says and he tightens Paul’s laces. ‘Every Hunter has a gift, given to you by your Light. It’s not just your speed and agility; it’s more than that. For me; the Light can manifest itself into a gun when I have a great need for it. A single bullet from that gun….’ He shakes his head, ‘and it’s over. My ability is called; _Gunslinger_.’ The smile widens, ‘we think Cayde named it. He’s not very creative.’

‘My ghost calls me a Bladedancer,’ Paul says.

‘He’s right. When you get surrounded in a fight, overwhelmed, when the enemies are all over you; your Light will shine and your blades,’ he sucks on his teeth, ‘will end them all. Don’t worry about how or when. It will happen. And when it does, you will know exactly what to do. Our powers draw on our Light. Daryl’s don’t. He touched the Void; made it a part of him, and then he took his name; _Nightstalker_. Hunt from the shadows. Pin them down. _Never_ let them see you coming.’

‘Stop givin’ away all my secrets, Grimes,’ Daryl murmurs. He lazily lifts his left hand and wriggles his fingers. For a moment, just a second, Paul can see the faint outline of a purple bow in his hand. Glowing bright and frightening him with its dark energy.

‘You get hit with that thing,’ Rick tells him, ‘and there’s nowhere to run. You _can’t_ run anymore. It slows you down, makes you unable to reach for your own Light, and it just... well, it _hurts_. It doesn’t have to hit you specifically. The shot just has to land anywhere near you.’

‘So you don’t even have to aim?’ Paul asks with a small smirk. ‘Sounds easy.’

Daryl snorts. He swings his legs off the desk and sits up. ‘Do you even know what it _means_ to be a Hunter? You dumb piece of shit. Just woke up, got his fancy-ass blades and thinks he’s the Light itself. Bet you picked up those boots because you thought they looked cool, huh? Never mind that they’ll get you fuckin’ killed out there.’

Paul looks at his old boots with the steel noses. ‘We fought the Fallen with that and survived, so I think we’ll be okay.’

‘Slow like molasses but have at it, I guess,’ Daryl grins.

‘You fought Fallen?’ Rick asks sharply. ‘Where?’

‘The Cosmodrome.’

Daryl lifts an eyebrow, ‘the hell were you doin’ there?’

Paul shrugs and lets Rick help him put his chest armor on. It’s sleek and black, warm to his touch. ‘I woke up nearby. Ghost said we needed a ship; the Cosmodrome is a shipyard, so... we went there.’

‘On Earth? You died on fucking Earth and it took ya this long to get your ass back here? Pff,’ the Nightstalker makes as throw-away gesture. ‘Screw you, man.’

‘Easy,’ Rick warns and he clips Paul’s elbow pads on. ‘Others haven’t made it back either. There are still Ghosts out there, searching for their Guardians.’

‘They ain’t comin’ back, bro.’

‘You don’t know that. It took you a long time to come home, too.’

The Hunter bristles at that. ‘Yeah, ‘cause my ghost had to glue a spaceship back together in Hive territory, man, not because I were sniffing flowers on my walk over from the goddamn _Cosmodrome_.’

Ghost flies up so he’s on eyelevel with Rick. ‘The Fallen have a tight hold on Old Russia. We should set out some patrol missions to drive them back. Jesus and I will return there later. There’s a Warp Drive there with our name on it.’

‘So you want us to clear you a path?’ Daryl scoffs as he gets up from the desk. His feet don’t make any sound on the metal. ‘Cayde was right. You’re an embarrassment for Hunters everywhere.’ His hand moves again but only to summon his own Ghost. Instead of the plain metal shell, his is a dark purple.  The eye-piece bright yellow. The Nightstalker disappears in a mist of purple and darkness.

‘Don’t mind him,’ Rick says with a small chuckle. ‘He’s always looking for a fight.’

‘Even with his own people?’

‘ _Especially_ with his own people,’ Rick laughs. ‘He gets bored hanging around the Tower. He wants to be out there, in the Wilds. Everyone had their own idea of what it means to be Hunter, but that’s the most common understanding. It’s all about where you belong. The warlocks have their libraries. Titans have their walls. But Hunters belong in the Wilds. Out there, you wanna live? You better have a quick shot, or a sharp blade. A lot of us are loners, but that’s not the only path. Some of us know the difference a Fireteam makes. We’re quick and we’re silent. We’re the knives in our enemy’s backs.’

‘Or mine, if it’s up to Daryl.’

‘Or yours,’ Rick agrees. ‘If you’re too slow. Here,’ he holds out a black cloak. ‘This is yours.’

‘It looks plain,’ Paul says as he puts it on. ‘I don’t think Cayde would approve.’

‘A hunter’s cloak represents them,’ Rick says as he sits down on his desk. ‘You can tell everything about a Hunter from what cloak they’re wearing. Who they are. What they stand for.’

‘Yeah?’ Paul glances at the reflection in the window. He can see the back of Rick’s cloak. A wolf stares back at him. ‘What does yours represent?’

Rick cocks his head to the side. ‘It’s called _Strength of the Pack_.’

‘Right. So you think I’m plain?’

‘You’ve been awake for, what? Two days? How am I supposed to give you the right cloak when _you_ don’t even know who you are?’

‘Fair enough,’ Paul allows. He walks around the room. He feels different, lighter on his feet, and he can’t resist the urge to hop up on the bench, walking on the edge and then jumping down. A pleased smile creeps onto his face when he notices that he, just like Daryl, doesn’t make a sound when he lands. ‘This feels better.’

‘Of course it does,’ Rick laughs. ‘Daryl wasn’t wrong. Slow like molasses with those steel-toed boots. And Cayde didn’t send you here to look good for the Speaker. He wants you to wear good gear. We might be loners, but we look after our own. Just don’t expect us to be nice about it all the time.’

‘See?’ Ghost asks. ‘You’ll fit right in, _Paul_.’

 

 

The Speaker’s chambers are on the highest level of the Tower. The wind tugs at Paul’s limbs as he stares at the Traveler. Just a white sphere floating above the city. There are darker patches visible, cracks on the even surface. He wonders what it is. A machine, maybe, just like the Ghosts it created. Or something far more divine than that.

‘There was a time, when we were much more powerful, but that was long ago.’ The speaker appears at the top of the stairs. Dressed in white robes and wearing a white mask to hide his face. Dark gloves and a dark hood match his boots. His voice is deep and soothing, a strange accent twisting the words pleasantly. ‘Until it wakes and finds its voice, I am the one who speaks for the Traveler.’ He gestures towards the railing from where they both look out at the great machine above them. ‘You must have no ends of questions, Guardian. In its dying breath, the Traveler created the ghosts, to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon – Guardians, to protect us, and do what the Traveler itself no longer can.’

Ghost stares up at its creator. Then it zooms back to Paul, nuzzling his stomach until the Hunter takes hold of it, cradling it and stroking the metal soothingly.

‘What happened to the Traveler?’

The Speaker sighs softly. His shoulders sag. ‘I could tell you of the great battle, centuries ago... how the Traveler was crippled. I could tell you of the power of the Darkness, its ancient enemy. There are many tales told throughout the City to frighten children. Lately those tales have stopped. Now, the children are frightened anyway.’ The traveler straightens and looks at Paul. ‘The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time.’

‘Its armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning,’ Ghost says while looking up at its Guardian.

‘What can I do?’ Paul asks.

‘You must push back the darkness,’ the Speaker says. ‘Guardians are fighting on Earth and beyond…. _Join them_. Your Ghost will guide you. I only hope he chose wisely.’

‘I did!’ the little machine pipes up, floating out of Paul’s hands to be on eye-level with him. Together, they watch how the Speaker retreats into his chamber, closing the door behind him without another word. ‘I’m sure of it. We’re in this together now.’

 

 

His room is small. There’s just a bed, a bathroom and a desk. There are two weapons laid out on the desk. A lethal looking sniper rifle and a hand canon. Gifts from Rick, no doubt. His Ghost scans them, humming happily while prattling on about high caliber rounds and rate of fire.

Paul throws his gloves and cloak onto the bed and stares out of the small window above the desk. One hand on the cool glass and eyes fixed on the Traveler, so high above them all.

‘Rick gave us an _Ice Breaker_!’ Ghost squeals. ‘The sniper rifle! It’s an Ice breaker, Paul! Maybe we can take it out into the Crucible tomorrow, see how it fits you. I mean – we really should hunt for the warp drive, I know, but you’re still waking up! We should practice before you go out into the Wilds. And the Crucible is the perfect place.’

‘I don’t know what that is,’ Paul says softly. He feels tired. Weary after the long day and new impressions, the memory of Daryl’s Void energy still unsettling something deep inside of him.

‘They’re the training grounds,’ Ghost explains. ‘It’s like a big arena with all kinds of terrains and obstacles. You can enter with your Fireteam or just fight on your own. It’s a great exercise for new Guardians!’

The Hunter frowns. ‘Who do they fight? Fallen?’

‘Fallen? No –no. Each other!’

‘ _Each other?_ ’ Paul asks as he turns around and stares at his ghost.

Ghost hesitates for a second. ‘Yes? Nobody can really get hurt, their Ghosts are on stand-by of course. It’s just a way for Guardians to hone their skills.’

‘Hone their skills by – what? Killing each other?’

‘Yes!’ Ghost sounds happy that he understands the concept now. ‘We can do that tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ Paul mutters as he pushes himself away from the window, feeling sick. He falls onto his bed and curls up. ‘I’m tired.’

‘I’ll get the lights,’ Ghost says and he sounds a little concerned now. The light goes out in the room but the blue optic still illuminates most of it. The little drone settles down on the bed as well. ‘Tell me why you’re upset.’

‘Is this what they do?’ Paul asks with a frown. ‘They revive us, give us a gun and send us out there? Join everyone else; go kill something?’

‘Not something. Not just anything! The Darkness!’

‘Right.’

Ghost shifts closer to him. ‘I promised I would not lead you astray, remember? You’re a Guardian. You don’t just kill; you _protect_.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Tomorrow I will take you to the city. I will show you what we’re fighting for,’ Ghost promises. ‘ _Who_ we are fighting for.’

‘Fine.’ Paul turns his back on his ghost and looks out of the window. The Traveler seems to glow in the darkness. Paul frowns and closes his eyes. He wonders what kind of a God resurrects people just so they’ll kill in its name.

 

 


	5. The Crucible

 

 

 

 

Half an hour before dawn, Paul walks out of the Guardian’s complex and into the courtyard. The various shops haven’t opened yet and even the hangar seems quiet. There are no spaceships coming in at the moment, but the landing strips are lit up anyway in case a Guardian comes home unexpectedly. He passes a robot that is sweeping diligently. It almost looks like an Exo, an older model perhaps, or one that is merely created for doing chores. The body doesn’t move as fluently as Cayde’s does, nor is it as slick and human-like as the Vanguard’s.

The robot glances up.

‘Good morning,’ Paul says even though he’s not sure whether the machine can talk at all.

It doesn’t respond.

The courtyard is deserted. The banners have been taken down and the only noise Paul can hear is the faint hum of electricity and the buzz of the city down below. He walks towards the end of the grass and hops onto the ledge. The city is bathing in artificial light. Only the river is a dark strip snaking towards the horizon. Most lights are static, streetlights and billboards and projections, but some move through back streets, leaving faint traces of red in the night air. Vehicles, moving fast.

Paul tries to follow one but it disappears behind tall buildings. He leans forward to see how close the city is to the Tower.

‘Don’t jump.’

The voice startles him. His breath catches in his throat but he shifts his weight back to remain on the ledge.

Cayde is standing next to him. He’s almost swallowed by the darkness. The dark hood and armor blurs his edges, but his eyes shine bright. When he speaks, something glows near his jaw, inside his mouth. A voice box of some kind, perhaps.

‘Of course not,’ Paul says. He sits down on the ledge. His legs dangle above the City.

‘You wouldn’t be the first.’ Cayde sounds amused when he leans against the concrete next to his new Hunter. He looks out over the last stronghold of their kind. His arm comes up and he nudges Paul’s spine, almost shoving him off the ledge, ‘but most get pushed.’

‘ _What the_ -‘

Cayde laughs. ‘Easy, Hunter. _Easy_. I don’t want to get in trouble. Tower jumping, or falling, isn’t allowed anymore.’

Paul frowns, ‘what - suicide isn’t allowed anymore? Downright murder?’

‘ _Suicide_?’ Cayde seems to snort. ‘ _Murder_? You’re a riot. What?’ he seems to catch up on the fact that his Hunter is serious. ‘Old words. They’ve lost their meaning a long time ago, Guardian,’ he says. ‘No – no – it’s a game, see? People like to stand here, admire the view. And you just sidle up to them, _gasp_! _Look at that_!’

‘What?’ Paul looks down at where the exo is pointing. He has to lean forward to see what it is.

‘And off you go,’ Cayde laughs as he grabs Paul’s shoulder and jostles him, pulling him back just before the hunter slides off the ledge and into the abyss that is the City down below. They’re hundreds of feet into the air. ‘You just have to give them a little nudge.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Yes. And I have to admit; most Hunters used to jump on their own accord.’

‘Why?’

Cayde shrugs. ‘The fall takes a while. You’re weightless, nothing matters anymore, you’re – you’re just falling.’ He looks wistful for a second. ‘And then _splat_! You’re dead. That’s why it’s illegal now, you see? It creates a mess at the bottom. People – normal people – they don’t like to see that kind of stuff. Disturbs them. Never understood why.’

‘You don’t understand why?’ Paul repeats slowly.

‘We don’t die,’ Cayde tells him. ‘Not from this. Two seconds and our feet touch this green grass again, reborn. _Completely fine_.’

‘And they watched someone fall from over a hundred feet and… _splat_.’

‘ _Yeah_!’ The Vanguard sounds giddy at the thought. ‘I mean – yeah,’ he tries to sound somber but fails miserably. ‘Anyway – it doesn’t matter. Zavala is a stick in the mud. The Titan Vanguard,’ he adds when Paul looks a little lost. ‘Stick In The Mud. He says we’re above such petty entertainment. Personally, I think everyone around this place can use a laugh.’

Paul looks at the Hunter. He bites his tongue and reserves judgment because his mind is still spinning from all the information and the new way of life he needs to learn. The blue eyepiece shines brightly as Cayde watches over the city. Behind them, the first Guardians are heading to their posts. Most stumble sleep-drunk towards their ships, guided by their Ghosts, but he spots Rosita among them, wide-eyed and cheerful.

‘Do you see the wall?’ Cayde points to the large structure that protects the border of the city. ‘There will be a sparrow race later this afternoon, if you want to come and watch.’

‘What is it?’

‘ _A sparrow race_ ,’ Cayde repeats, drawing the words out like Paul is slow. ‘Oh. It’s – I don’t know, just… something we use to get around. It’s …. A tiny...’ He flaps his hands around and then holds his thumb and index finger close together to show how tiny exactly a sparrow is in his mind.  ‘A tiny ship!’

‘A tiny ship?’

‘Yes.’

Paul lifts an eyebrow. ‘How _did_ you become the Hunter’s Vanguard? You’re terrible at explaining anything.’

The blue eyepiece dims so suddenly that it takes Paul’s breath away. It turns black, reflecting the young hunter’s face and drawing all expression out of the Exo’s face. Suddenly, it’s very clear that he’s made of metal. Cold and hardly alive. He pushes himself away from edge.

‘I need to go. May the Light shine on you, Hunter.’

‘Cayde,’ Paul calls out before he can stop himself. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.’

The eyepiece glints when the Exo throws a mean look over his shoulder. ‘Good luck in the crucible today. You’ll need it.’

Paul sits down on the ledge again. He feels cold even though the sun is coming up behind him. His light boots thud against the stone beneath him. The knives are still on his belt, he felt too naked when he stepped out of his room without them this morning, but he has left the guns behind.

Other guardians do carry them. They stick out of holsters on their thighs and waists, hidden beneath their arms and some are even clipped to their backs. Long sniper rifles and things that could only be rocket launchers.

‘ _Paul_!’ Ghost materializes so close to his face that the Hunter nearly takes a tumble off the Tower.

He grabs hold of the ledge with one hand and swats at the machine with the other. ‘ _What_?’

‘What? _What_? What do you think you’re doing, going outside without me! What if something happened to you and I wasn’t there? You shouldn’t be out here alone!’

‘I’m literally surrounded by Guardians,’ Paul says, a little amused at the frantic tone of his ghost. ‘Safest place to be, right? Even though Cayde did just threaten to nudge me off the Tower. Is that how it works? You need to be physically by my side to be able to help me?’

‘Well… I can transmit to your location but-‘

‘So you’re freaking out over nothing?’

‘No!’ Ghost sounds scandalized. It looks away. ‘Out in the Wilds, there are darkzones. Places where even Ghosts can’t resurrect you, and the Tower won’t ever hear your pleas for help. We should always stick together, no matter what.’

‘What’s the point of us being together if you won’t be able to resurrect me?’

Ghost looks down at the ground and then at his Hunter.

The hunter reaches out and draws him into his arms, sighing softly as the cold is banished from his bones. ‘That was a dumb question, I’m sorry. We won’t be out there alone. I’ll let you know when I leave next time. What were you doing anyway? Do Ghosts sleep?’

‘We update.’

‘Right,’ Paul grins down at the small device. ‘Cayde invited us to a sparrow race on the wall this afternoon.’

Ghost perks up. ‘He did? We should go!’

‘Yeah, we will. He wishes us good luck in the Crucible today as well. Said we’d need it.’

‘We don’t need luck,’ Ghost says with a hint of pride in its voice. ‘We have our Light.’

 

 

Two hours later, Paul wonders whether Ghost regrets those words.

He’s standing in the corner of a room while he waits for his match to begin. The sniper rifle Rick got him is heavy and the hand cannon feels strange to his touch after he’d gotten used to the rifle he’d found on Earth. He knows he needs to get used to them but still prefers his blades.

There are other Guardians waiting as well. Some are lounging on chairs, casually chatting with their Ghosts or their friends but others are nervously pacing around. They check their guns frantically, shaking fingers fumbling over triggers. All of that stops when Lord Shaxx walks up to them and barks that they should cut it out until they’re in the ring.

The matches are displayed on big screens. Paul watches how Guardians run, jump and glide around corners of abandoned buildings, hop over walls to get into empty hangars or climb trees to get to safety.

He averts his gaze when a Guardian jumps down from the branches to land on another’s back and puts a gun against the back of his helmet.

The gunshot is lost in the cheers of the crowd watching.

‘Tell me more about this place,’ Paul mutters.

Ghost appears at his shoulder. ‘The Crucible? Of course. It’s good to be prepared. Well, it was created by Shaxx after the battle of the Twilight Gap. It was a battle we barely won. Many great Guardians died defending the city. There was a lot of debate during the aftermath concerning out defenses. The walls hadn’t been able to keep our enemies out and now our strongest, wisest – our most experienced Guardians had fallen. During a next attack, the City would be defended by newly risen – Guardians like you.’

Paul nods. ‘With no experience and no idea how to fight at all.’

‘Exactly,’ Ghost says. ‘Muscle memory is not enough to win a war. That’s why Shaxx built these arenas; to train young Guardians and prepare them for the next fight. That’s what it was meant to do, anyway.’ Ghost looks away for a moment. ‘There’s honor to be won here, on these grounds. Glory and glimmer, our currency. You will be ranked and the people in the City will be watching. The matches are displayed on big screens.’

‘Entertainment.’

‘For them, and for us,’ Ghost agrees. ‘This is training, and you will see the fun of it once you enter.’

‘I doubt that. I’ll still be hunting people.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Ghost says. ‘Or else we’re the prey.’

‘Kinder-Guardians,’ Shaxx suddenly barks. ‘Line up!’

‘He means you,’ Ghost whispers while the other Guardians snigger behind their gloves.

Paul sets his jaw and pushes himself away from the wall. Another Guardian makes its way to the front, too, and going by his armor, he’s definitely a Titan. A woman with pale blue skin dressed in robes looks around curiously before following her Ghost to the master of the Crucible.

‘Name?’

Paul glances at his Ghost. ‘Jesus.’

Ghost groans but Shaxx just moves on.

The name _Jesus_ gets filled into the roster.

The names of their opponents appear seconds later but they appear to use code-names as well. The crowd cheers. One Hunter roars with laughter and slams his fist onto the table. ‘Okay,’ he calls out, ‘which one of you noobs pissed off Cayde today?’

Everyone looks at Paul.

‘Err… me. Why?’

The Hunter draws a line over his cheek to mime a tear. ‘Ghost,’ he says, voice broken as if he’s been crying for hours. ‘Stand by for resurrection. We’re going to lose your Hunter today. About twice a second. And he’ll be on the bottom of the leaderboard _for the rest of his life_. But hey! Good luck out there!’

Paul opens his mouth but Shaxx snaps his fingers and he’s gone.

Seconds later, his boots touch the ground of the Crucible arena. There are several, all with different lay-outs and now he wishes he had watched the matches before him. He’s going in blind. The terrain is completely unfamiliar and it doesn’t help that the two Guardians standing beside him look just as lost.

‘That’s your Fire team,’ Ghost says from inside of his head. ‘Your teammates. The countdown will start soon.’

‘Who is our opponent?’

‘Don’t worry about them right now,’ Ghost tells him. ‘Trust me and trust your instincts, Paul. Helmet on, gun up. Use your light.’

The helmet materializes around him. He pulls it slightly lower, adjusting it so it fits perfectly. His breathing is hot against his own cheeks. There’s sweat already trickling down his neck but his hand is steady when he pulls his hand canon out.

It’s heavy, but the weight of it is comforting.

Suddenly, the countdown starts.

‘One,’ Shaxx’s voice echoes. ‘Show us what you’ve got Guardian.’

‘ _Go_!’ Ghost urges.

Paul starts running even though he has no idea where he’s supposed to go. The arenas are confined spaces so he’ll be running around in circles but it’s better than being a sitting duck, he reckons. He slips around a corner, heads up a couple of steps and notices that he’s in some sort of a garden. There’s a waterfall and ruined structures, there’s-

‘Paul, _no_!’

A gunshot rings out.

Pain. Everywhere. Pain flashing through his head, setting his nerves on fire, eating him alive. He opens his mouth to scream and-

He’s reborn somewhere else.

Feet touching the ground again, the gun still in his hand and his mouth still open but the scream dying in his chest.

‘What the fuck?’ Paul pants.

‘You just died,’ Ghost informs him. ‘Sniper shot. We’re fighting one of each; a Hunter, a Titan and a Warlock. So… just try again. You were doing good.’

‘I ran two steps.’

‘You did _great_.’

Paul snorts and wants to swat at the machine, but it’s currently hiding within himself.

‘But you might want to pay attention to your radar,’ Ghost advises. ‘That round circle on the bottom of your vision? Yes, I’m displaying that. The red parts mean that there’s enemy movement there, so take extreme caution.’

‘Can I just avoid those parts of the map?’

‘If you want to go down in history as a coward, sure.’

Paul takes a deep breath. ‘Okay, let’s try again.’ He starts running. One part of his radar lights up red. ‘If I cross from left to right, we can flank them.’

‘Oh, you have a _strategy_ now?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Paul laughs, ‘you’re supposed to help me! What-‘

‘To your left!’

Paul turns his head just in time to see a Hunter who is sitting on a couple of steps. Dressed completely in black, helmet hiding their face. It cocks to the side just as Paul slides to a stop and starts to raise his gun.

The Hunter waves at him.

A shot rings out and Paul dies again.

His feet touch the ground somewhere else again.

‘What the hell,’ Paul hisses, ‘they didn’t even raise their gun in time!’

‘They were behind you, too. They flanked you.’

‘Am I the only one dying, or…?’

‘ _No_ ,’ Ghost sniggers. ‘Your team isn’t doing very well. Shaxx will call mercy on you soon, don’t worry about it. Just give it another try.’

‘How am I supposed to get better at this when I don’t even get the _chance_ to shoot at someone?’

‘I’m sorry, this is the most unfair match-up I have ever witnessed,’ Ghost laughs, ‘but we can get them. Okay, the key is to work together. Find your team and then three against three.’

‘But did you see that asshole just now? They were just _sitting_ there!’

‘I know. The radar doesn’t pick them up that way, it’s a silly trick. Let’s just go.’

Paul grits his teeth and starts running again. He’s faster than before, skipping around corners easily, sometimes jumping up to run a couple of steps along the wall before dropping to the ground again. His heart leaps whenever he jumps, skipping over the ruins and crossing open spaces in seconds.

The sound of gunfire lures him to the middle of the map. He slides to a stop at a corner and peeks around it. One of the members of his fire team is stuck in a corner. Bullets slam into the wall beside him as he cowers.

‘Throw a grenade. Left side of your belt,’ Ghost advises.

Paul grabs the small ball, clicks on a button and then tosses it into the hallway where the gunfire is coming from. It stops as his enemies scramble to get out of the way. The Titan who’s on his side runs towards him, grateful to get out of his situation.

‘Let’s go, we need to find the Warlock! Jesus, right? Let’s go! We- _shit_!’

Paul whirls around, brings his hand canon up and shoots.

The Hunter dressed in black dodges it but has to roll away from them to do it. Knives glint as they put them away again, reaching for their own handgun. They’d tried to sneak up on him to slit his throat. Knives in the dark.

 _Hunters_.

The Titan shoots but the hunter disappears into a corridor.

Running footsteps and then their own Warlock comes around another corner. ‘Behind me!’ She slides past Paul, going down to avoid his fire. He shoots before he even sees the Titan who was chasing her.

It falls to the ground and disappears into a mist of blue.

‘ _Headshot_!’ Ghost shrieks into his head. ‘ _Paul! You got him! You killed him! Paul_ , oh my God, _no_ – Paul, run!’

Paul turns around.

The Hunter dressed in black runs across a platform above them and jumps into the air. Then his glove starts to glow purple and a bow comes into existence. It’s terrifying to behold. Pure fear races through Paul’s blood, stills it until it hurts his heart. He watches how the bow glows deadly pale in the sky, the string is drawn back and a single arrow materializes. Darker. Lethal.

He closes his eyes as soon as the archer lets go.

The arrow slams into the ground near his feet.

For a second, there’s blissful silence.

Then the air itself roars as dark energy grabs hold of Paul, the Titan and the Warlock. All three of them scream when it touches them and their Light. It eats at them, drives them to their knees, weakens them to the point that they wish they’d have died on impact.

Paul screams. _Everything_ hurts. He looks up and watches how the Hunter lands gracefully beside them. Dark energy coloring his footsteps. His Light warped and _wrong_.

Then a Warlock lands next to him, robes whispering in the breeze. Her skin is dark and it crinkles around her eyes when she laughs. She gently shoves the Hunter’s shoulder before getting her gun out and killing the Warlock beside Paul.

‘Don’t do that. Finish him.’

‘This weren’t _my_ idea. ‘m bored.’

The Warlock throws the Hunter a stern look. ‘ _Finish him_.’

The Hunter scoffs and walks over to Paul. ‘Hurts, huh? Pussy.’ He grabs one of his grenades from his belt and balances it on Paul’s head. ‘There ya go. All better.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Works.’

The seconds tick by so slowly that Paul begs for death before the end. Even Ghost’s soothing voice does nothing against the screaming pain in his veins caused by the dark energy of the void. He can’t move. Can’t speak. He can only wait until the grenade explodes and he’s in a new corner of the map once again.

His boots touch ground.

And he rips his helmet off to throw it onto the ground. ‘I’m fighting _Daryl_?’

Ghost manages to sound sympathetic. ‘Yes.’

‘This is so unfair! What, he’s – he’s… This is unfair.’

‘Well, just Daryl wouldn’t be the end of the world but his fire team as well? That’s.. it’s impossible to win this, Paul. Cayde set you up. What did you do to him?’

‘Offended him.’

‘And now he’s humiliating us. _Great_. But hey! You got a kill! Look on the bright side, you’re not _completely_ wiped. Just… mostly.’

‘Yes, thank you, Ghost,’ Paul sighs as he leans down to grab his helmet again. He puts it back on and sees that the part of the map he’s standing on is red. ‘Is he hunting me?’

‘He is,’ Ghost confirms. ‘I think Cayde might have made you an objective. It’s something you can do to make the matches more exciting, get extra rewards…. Get five kills with grenades, or ten headshots in one match…’

‘Or kill Jesus.’

‘Yes.’

Paul rolls his eyes but then smiles. ‘I have to admit. This is more fun than I thought it would be. They got the jump on us this time, but we’ll learn and we’ll beat them one day. Right?’

‘Of course. He’s coming from your right.’

Paul quickly gets moving. Instead of running away, however, he decides to climb up to the platforms above them. Out in the distance, he can hear gunshots and snipers shots ringing out but Daryl’s footsteps are lost in the noise. He probably doesn’t even have any, Paul thinks sourly as he pulls himself onto a ledge.

Beneath him, a shadow moves quickly, darting left and right, in and out of the hallway as if they’re already dodging bullets.

Paul slowly and silently puts his gun away. The palms of his hands itch. He grabs hold of his knives and suddenly feels a surge of energy shooting through him. It lifts him up in the air, tenses his muscles for a second, and then lets him float.

‘What the-?’

‘It’s your light! Use it!’

Daryl looks up and starts running as fast as he can.

Paul lets the energy guide him. It lets him fall to the ground, then dash forward faster than he’s ever run before. His knives slice through the air as he chases the other Hunter, who is now running for his very life. Faster and faster and faster, until Paul jumps up in the air and kicks Daryl’s back to make him fall to the ground. Together they slide over the ground, Paul quick enough with his Light activated to end up on the Hunter’s chest when he rolls over.

Daryl is laughing however.

Paul grits his teeth and brings the knife up to-

‘ _Time_.’

‘Killing me now would be dishonorable. Even among Hunters,’ Daryl informs him. ‘Michonne got the last kill in. Shaxx showed you mercy by ending the game quickly. Get off of me.’

Ghost appears beside Paul. ‘He’s right, Paul.’

Paul lets his head hang for a second before getting off the other man. He holds out his hand to help the Nightstalker up.

Daryl looks surprised but accepts the help. ‘Yeah – thanks.’

‘So you’re what – a Crucible legend?’

‘I ain’t wastin’ my time here normally – nah. My fire team is though. Michonne? Dominates every single match. Ain’t nothing like her light. Abraham? Well – you got him once, there ain’t many who can claim that. So… ya weren’t totally hopeless, for a Kinder Guardian.’

‘Kinder Guardian?’

‘Child,’ Daryl snorts. ‘Get ready for transmat,’ he warns just as his own Ghost materializes beside him to take him back to the Tower.

It makes Paul smile that Daryl perks up at the sight of the machine, reaching out to pull it closer to himself just as they vanish into a soft blue mist.

 

 

A shoulder collides with his own as soon as he appears at the Tower again. There’s laughter all around him, Guardians whistling and hooting and asking which part of him _isn’t_ hurting right now. Money exchanges hands but nobody had placed a bet on him. They all had tried to guess which one of the senior Guardians would get the highest kill count.

‘Thanks a lot, man,’ the Titan who was on Paul’s team grouses as he pushes past him. ‘You asshole.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think-‘

‘That’s not what Hunters are known for, no,’ the Warlock sneers as she heads towards the exit.

A knife lands so close to the Warlock’s head that she shrieks in fear.

‘Sorry,’ Daryl mumbles from where he’s sitting on one of the table with his Fire team. The darkness crackles around him. ‘Slipped from my hand. Best watch your mouth, sunshine.’

‘I didn’t think Cayde would do this,’ Paul continues after throwing a glare at the other Hunter. ‘I’ll – I’ll talk to him, maybe…’

‘Your ranking has not yet been decided,’ the Warlock at Daryl’s table says. ‘This wasn’t a real match. Hunters deal with internal conflict in their own ways, which we often find… immature. But let me give you some advice; do not insult them. Their code is their code, and their class is theirs to keep safe.’

Daryl glances at Paul.

Paul smirks back at him.

Daryl flips him off.

‘Rematch tomorrow?’

‘You’re too big for your damn britches.’

‘You sound scared. There’s a sporrow race on the wall this afternoon and I’m new in town. Walk me there?’

‘It’s called a _sparrow_ , ya nerd,’ Daryl snorts.

‘Well, if you know so much about it, you won’t mind teaching me, right?’

Daryl scowls at him for a moment but then shrugs. ‘Be on the deck in two hours.’

‘Thank you.’

The Nightstalker frowns and then hurriedly turns back to his Fire team. The tips of his ears are pinker than usual. ‘Yeah – whatever.’

Paul laughs and walks away. He beams at his Ghost when they’re out of sight. ‘One more thing we’ve learned about me today.’

‘That you have a death wish?’

‘No. Cayde might love humiliating me in the Crucible, but I love making Daryl blush.’

 

 

 


End file.
